by S. L. Hawke
Immediately I rolled him over and placed a hard tack biscuit in his mouth, but he broke through it so Fergus, who startled me with being right at my left elbow for assistance, helped me stuff a corner of the canvas table cloth in the lieutenant’s mouth. Fitzgerald’s eyes had rolled back and he wet himself, but we managed to help him through the worst of it. Fergus and I started breathing again not noticing the stares from the General, Jad, Beasle, and Andrew.
“I’ll get our MMT on him,” Fergus said quietly, helping me lay him prone across the former dinner table.
“What?” I asked, throat dry, heart hammering.
“Military Medical Technician,” Andrew said as he approached the now disoriented Lieutenant.
“I’ll get him,” the General excused himself.
“Shit, is this my fault?” Jad said, looking embarrassed and concerned. Fergus patted his shoulder, yet again showing us that his youth was an illusion.
“He takes opium in very measured doses for his condition. He left home because everyone thought the Devil had touched him.” Fergus watched me. “You know a little about that, I suspect. As did my father and me.” Fergus held up his left hand. I wrote left-handed, though in strange company I was adept at right-handed movements. “We McRees have always been left-handed and defied the Church by remaining so, because it’s an antiquated view.” Fergus took a deep breath and pointed down at the poor Lieutenant who started to weep a bit. “He has a disorder of the brain. I read about it. It’s my job to see to officers with special needs.”
My hands became fists. Swallowing was difficult. The tent was about to smother me.
“You alright?” Andrew asked me directly. Jad was seated in the corner undoing his collar. Andrew simply watched me and in one brief, bright moment I saw Miles in him.
It was the shaking that I couldn’t stand. It rippled through my guts like an earthquake. Not all my memories of Japan were pleasant.
“Maybe some more of that brandy might help,” I croaked.
Sleep did not come at all that night. Crickets screeched. The horses in the paddock were quite a ways away, but I swear I could feel their hoofs pound the dirt. The damp canvas roof of my tent seeped moisture, making me feel like I was being strangled by a wet sail. The cot threatened to break each time I moved and Andrew’s snuffles periodically stopped, making me sit up and check on him like I used to do with Hiru as a babe. Finally I could not stand it any longer and sought the comfort of the outside.
As quietly as I could, I went towards the shore of the lake. Something slapped at its surface, a large trout most likely (dinner was mostly fresh trout), sending rings of ripples outward across the dull surface. There was no wind. Frogs bellowed, then settled into a gentle singing as I knelt and washed my face in the deep cold of the lake water. No stars shone in the sky. The wave of fog I had seen earlier trying to break its way down the mountain range to the west of us had been allowed to come in and blanketed us with its salty, but fresh breath.
All evening the headache had been growing, but after Fitzgerald had collapsed, the ache had disappeared. The brittle sensation in my jaw and the tremors that threatened to and eventually did liquefy my gut had me visit Andrew’s latrine twice earlier that evening. Now was my third visit. How can a man hold so much in his gut?
Buttoning up my trousers I fought the memory of Miles and our last time together, its sweet release, her warmth, and now my loneliness.
A deep inhale brought me cool relief. Calmness settled somewhat in my gut, but I still felt as if something strange were lurking about. Dark triangles, outlines of the tents of mustered men, filled the dell. A variety of sounds men make when trying to go to sleep like grunting, coughing, farting, even snores, echoed throughout the darkness.
I was not at peace. Guards were set out of habit, but as I walked past the huddled sleeping sentry, the camp felt vulnerable. We had nothing to fear here, but the place did not feel…right.
I returned to the lake to scrub my hands well. Satisfied they were clean after several washings, like an elderly man, my back straightened and I stood up from this toil.
Then I heard it.
A sound like a tiny bell, tinkling softly in a light wind.
The air got very cold and sharp. The night deepened, even though the sky began to clear and I could see stars.
Three stars, two white and one very red, blinking, MOVED across the sky. I rubbed my tired eyes in disbelief, looked up again to find the moving lights, but instead found only the fog fighting to stay inland above us, and the faint blue black speckles of a starry night sky.
The bell tinkled, again.
This time, the sound was accompanied by rustling. Crouching slightly, I walked over to the edge of the camp. A horse nickered with unease. The small bell sounded again. Then I heard a small animal whine.
The private on the edge of camp was asleep. I kicked his foot. He stood at attention.
The bell sound tinkled loudly. Whatever it was had come closer to us. Now the horses were unsettled.
“What the fuck?” The private held his rifle up but I placed my hand on it. Again an animal whined.
“Shh,” I cautioned. Then I saw it.
A dog.
“Shit!” the private said in a panicked way. “Just a stupid bitch of a dog!” Ignoring his loud exclamation of disgust, I gestured towards the dog.
“Come on,” I said gently. The dog instantly obeyed with a wagging tail and a tremoring whine.
It was the most beautiful canine I had ever seen in my life. The long fur was brushed and clean. He smelled of soap and by the width of his middle, had known a well-fed existence. I petted the soft, clean fur and opened his mouth to find amazingly clean teeth.
“Probably from a nearby farm,” I answered to the private who was stamping his feet and blowing on his bare hands. Our breaths were misting. The cold had compounded, edged with ice.
My chilled fingers found a collar around the neck of the dog. The source of the bell sound, I saw, was two flat metal disks. The collar was an amazingly bright red, woven of fibers that shown brightly in the lamplight and were slick to the touch, like marine rope saturated in tar and whale oil. But these did not feel oily, just smooth, like metal.
The dog sat down and enjoyed my examination, but I could see that it was tired. He slumped on my knee and rolled on his back for a big belly rub.
The private complied joyfully, missing his home it would seem by the way he talked to the dog like a child, promising romps on hunting trips through what sounded like somewhere outside Massachusetts.
From the collar there was a belt buckle and from the loop, made of steel as fine as my own katana, hung a smaller loop which pierced a bright blue piece of metal, not steel, light, like tin, and I could feel stamped letters upon it.
“Hold your lamp nearer,” I said to the private who complied. Large letters loomed up at me as I struggled to get my spectacles on.
BOOMER
“Boomer.” The dog instantly sat upright and cocked his head. I could see he had a blue eye and a brown one. And speckles like a hen on his back. A beautiful dog. “Your name is Boomer.”
The dog barked. Now the horses were jittery. And lamps went on in the camp. I studied the round blue piece of tin closely. This is all I could make sense of.
A name: Jody Fischer
What looked like a city address: 12100 Woodside Avenue San Mateo CA 94120
And then a series of strange numbers 5103476908 with parentheses in between. (510)347, then a hyphen – then the rest. The second disk of tin made little sense to me and still I tried to recall those strange words and numbers but it alluded me. All I could see in the dim light was
COUNTY ANIMAL…LICENSE #…
“What the hell’s going on out there?” Lieutenant Beasle and the General seemed to growl out from their now brightly lit tents.
“Just a stray dog!” I yelled off into the darkness. “Come along, Boomer, let’s see what we can find.” The dog’s tail wagged vigorously a
nd I enjoyed his following of me. The path back to my tent was very dark and I appreciated his company.
Suddenly Boomer stopped and his ears went up. He’d seen something, or heard something.
“What is it, boy?” Then I heard it too, very faintly; as if from a dream, I heard a woman call Boomer’s name. The dog shot off into the darkness as if he were in a race. I tried to follow him, but the darkness was disorienting. I gave up, but not without some sadness. Boomer was best with his true owner, but what on Earth were people doing out here? This was wild lands now, with hills and beasts. What farm was out here? Shrugging my shoulders and missing the dog’s companionship more than was usual for me, I returned to the dark, damp tent and my creaky cot, covering up Andrew with a blanket before I reclined myself. Dawn and taps came too quickly.
3
The private on guard that night and the rest of the camp acted as if the strange appearance of a dog were of no consequence. Even Jad shook his head about it over breakfast, but later as we mustered out and found the El Camino Real Road and could see the white, dusty valley of San Jose ahead, Jad quietly asked me: “Did you see the strange lights in the sky?”
“The stars?” The morning felt too dusty, too mean to be thinking right.
“The MOVING stars, asshole.” Jad was having a hard time keeping level. He’d taken the bottle of brandy I guess. Fergus was nowhere to be seen. Andrew was, to my private amazement, completely energetic and speaking with another young cavalryman.
“Two white and one red that blinked?”
“Mine was a huge white ball that flashed and went in towards the bay.” Jad mumbled this last part. “Don’t you goddamn say a word about this to anyone.”
“Maybe it was the brandy.”
“Asshole.” Jad cantered on ahead. But his words chilled me. The lights I saw also were headed in the direction of the bay. What kind of omen was this for the path I was on?
Santa Clara was an incredibly busy commercial town. Order imposed itself on the landscape miles out, with clusters of cattle trading range with horses, and with vines, trees, and other crops I could not quite make out in the haze created by the miasma of activity coming from the San Jose central valley.
Beasle had started sneezing loudly but I followed his example of a kerchief across my face. The General called for a halt. The men seemed to know without being told what was about to transpire. Jad gestured for Andrew and myself to ride off to the side, as he knew a short cut and wanted to get home as quickly as possible. The General would be setting up military camp near the railroad, putting on a show of authority and strength. His orders were confidential, a meeting with the Mayor and the town council to take place before the evening.
“What’s this all about?” Andrew sidled up alongside me for the first time since we left San Francisco two days earlier.
“All military units are to enter through the town center and make themselves available to the folks or, in other words, keep your tail shirts tucked in, your money hid, and your manners on the table,” Jad added. “The Mayor offered the General his home for the evening and I am putting up with you two.”
“Appreciate that,” I added as we descended past acre after acre of fruit trees. A small girl in a white frilly dress waved at us from atop a cart that was laden with baskets. “A little early for harvesting, isn’t it?”
“Thinning.” Jad answered, waving to some of the Californios who were tending the trees and grounds.
“You own this?” Andrew’s voice betrayed his obvious envy.
“My wife does!” Jad answered, but you could hear the grin in it.
The gates to the adobe were tall and in the shape of grapes, the wrought iron done harshly in my taste, but I had seen iron works of Asia, not the blacksmith forced to make items of the house alongside his shoes for horses and hinges for doors. The gates were wide and had vines laden with a pink and orange blossom that looked like two pieces of delicate rice paper held together. They climbed the length of the wall.
The Rancho beyond was built from wood shipped, Jad proudly said, from Maine. Adobe was too thick and the rains destroyed its exterior too quickly. But as I coughed quietly against the dust, it was hard to imagine any rain falling soon. Adobe might be cooler than a stifling wooden house.
We went through the tall gates, scattering chickens, children, dogs, and some geese. A fountain, two-tiered and made of cement, greeted us with bubbling sweet water, and the rose garden was green from ample irrigation. Then Elena, dressed in a maroon silk hoop dress and black mantilla, gracefully descended the mansion’s stairs looking regal and as slight as she did the day Jad married her. Behind her three young ladies also descended the steps, like flower petals, in order of age. The youngest child was a boy, but a dusty vaquero, or so it seemed, approached us fast in the saddle and dismounted with the ease of youth. Taking off his wide rancho hat, a younger version of Jad was revealed, but with sun-browned skin and the brown eyes of his mother. In manners as well, he bowed to us as if we were royalty, in the formal greeting of the Spanish Court.
“This is my son, John Adams Higuera,” Jad said, using, I noticed, the Spanish tradition of naming children after the grandmother’s last name.
“A.J.! Welcome to our home!” Elena came down off the mansion steps as I dismounted and shook the young man’s hand. I introduced John to Andrew, but Andrew was not his usual smiling self. He stiffly nodded and kept staring at the three young ladies who surrounded their mother. John looked askance at his sisters as I had often done with young men when they came courting at our home.
“I’m starving, El!” Jad complained.
“In the bathhouse with you, you dirty old man!” But she kissed him anyway and he very unceremoniously, and to the deep embarrassment of one of the younger daughters, slapped his wife on her backside. She followed up with a playful push away. Jad then hurried on, only to be embraced by the daughters. Jad kissed each one of his daughters and his son, who first peeked at us, then grabbed his father’s hat as the two headed off to the bath house.
“A.J.. You are still too tall.” Elena looked at me, I’m sure remembering my illness and what I had done, as I was remembering now.
Her scream brought me running. Jad was bleeding badly from his head wound and from beating one of the soldados to a pulp. Elena was still bound by rope like a pig strung up to slaughter. They had torn her blouse open leaving her breasts bare and striped with lash marks. I could not look away from what looked like bite marks as well or the blood that ran down between her legs. I cut her down as gently as I could, then let Jad take over. I was warmed briefly by their mutual comforting, Jad crying that he should have saved her, her telling him that he did, that they were not man enough to do what looked like had been done. But she looked at me while she said this, her lie now a bond between us.
“A.J. LOOK OUT!!!!” she suddenly cried. Jad turned but still held Elena in his arms and I simply fired, straight at our Commanding Officer. The man fell backward, but he had been ready to kill us. Elena pointed at him and said, with sobs, that he was the one who had bound her up. But that was all she said. I understood the rest…worse yet, so did Jad. After my shot to the Captain’s head, Jad kicked and beat the corpse until his weakened body gave out. We huddled, all of us together in blood, excrement, and offal.
“Mrs. Hicks.” I took off my hat and held it between two hands. I introduced Andrew. We met Isabel, engaged to an engineer with the quicksilver mines. They would be married next month. The next one was Iana, who was also engaged, but to a young lawyer, who currently was in Sacramento. But the last was named Estella, and she was not engaged, at present, and Andrew was simply quiet to the point of pain.
I really did not understand what happened to him at that moment. Estella was tiny in stature, with dark ringlets of hair and a small mouth shaped like a tiny heart. She blushed prettily but also said little. Her skin was the color of the morning sky after the rays cleared the ridge, and her eyes were blue as turquoise. Unlike her engaged sis
ters, she wore no mantilla, only a comb made from abalone shell that glistened in the sun amidst the dark ocean of her hair.
The bath house was not as clean as those I was accustomed to but at least there was clean water and soap. Andrew also washed and I saw that he had a shaving blade. My own face looked like a briar patch. Andrew finished, wiped his clean face with a towel and pointed to me to make use of his “shaving kit’ as he referred to it. Dorcas had provisioned him well.
I made face lather with the fine, boar tail bristle.
“So you don’t like the pistol because you’re left-handed? I liked the way you pinned Fitzgerald to the table. You wouldn’t mind teaching me a few moves would you?”
“He speaks!” I said as I spread the lime-scented soap across my face. The blade handle was made of old ivory and the steel was fine. Japanese made. It had the wear of many uses, which only honed the steel. This kit was his father’s most likely. For a moment I looked down at the blade. A deep breath stopped my hand from shaking. “That’s right. Pistols favor the right-handed.”
“Well I suspect that if you are a good enough fighter, you wouldn’t need a gun. You’re just as likely to shoot a friendly person with it, or yourself, than the person you’re trying to stop.”
The razor was sharp and removed the unwanted hair quickly, but on the upstroke a nick put an end to my enjoyment of the moment. Andrew handed me a damp clean rag that smelled of camphor. It stung but the bleeding stopped. He shifted from foot to foot.
“So how DO you talk to girls, and I mean just talk, not try and get up their skirts?”
“Just be yourself. And ask them about what they like, what they dream of, what they want.” I wiped the back of my neck and opted to button up my shirt without a collar. This was a fandango, not a dinner party.
We left our cabin-shaped tent and joined the family in a large meal that contained mostly beef, venison, and a rich chewy green that was spicy and full of aged garlic. There were dried apricots in syrup and onions in a salty, dark, rich red wine gravy with mushrooms, which I poured over everything on my plate. It particularly went well with the apricots. Capon was next, with a spice I didn’t recognize but liked, earthy and pungent. There were also lots and lots of potatoes and cheese, three kinds, with olives, and dark green olive oil was poured over everything.
